I purchased a brand new never used Brother HL-L5200DWT last year on Facebook Market Place for $160. Far better price than the backordered priced by about 3 times. If you plan on making this a career having the best equipment that you can acquire at a reasonable price is necessary.
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Very. Get that dual tray. Real time saver.
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You can do it with a single tray and use page separator but what a lot of unnecessary work. Up to you. It is your time and dime.
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I understand the benefits of the dual tray printer. I’ve been a notary for a while and starting loan signing has been a goal from the beginning. Since I’m just getting started and this is a side hustle, I will have to make do with my single tray HP Laserjet for a while longer. I have to add a little extra time for printing out documents in order, but I only do a few each week right now. And frankly, so far, I haven’t had any legal-size documents yet.
I think what it comes down to is that if you are planning to do this full-time, make it a career, and be as efficient as possible, a dual-tray printer should be on your list to acquire as quickly as financially possible.
However, I don’t believe it’s necessary to run out on week one a purchase one. I go over all documents three times before I even print them. Then I go over them twice again. It allows me to catch any problems, misprints, missed pages, change in size, etc.
When the time comes, I’ll research and purchase the right printer. For now, it’s a luxury I cannot afford. Hopefully, when I do have it, I won’t become complacent and trust in it as opposed to my own diligence.
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I agree with others who state that the equipment is dependent upon your workload. If full-time in this business, a dual tray is a must (when affordable). I just hit my one-year mark and I’m scaling this business back to more of a part-time gig. However, at the outset, I have a laser that requires me to pull out the top tray to load legal-size while the bottom tray is letter-size. As a result, I use Page Separator to split the print job. Additionally, I have a separate Canon scanner.
With this setup, I’ve done about 500 closings in a year which averages to about 2 closings per day, but there were some days where I did 4-6 closings when the situations were right for it. I say that to say this if your business model is to do 4-6 per day regularly, then you must have the dual tray. If however, your model is to only do 1-2 closings per day, then you can make do with a single tray until the funds are available for the dual tray upgrade.
As for the scanner, I have the desktop Canon in the office that scans 50 pages per minute, but I have two portable Brother scanners also (one does 20 pages at a time, while the other is 1 page at a time for emergency backup and very small scan jobs.) both are wireless.
I hope this gives you a more practical view of the day-to-day capabilities as it relates to your particular business model.
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I use the Brother 6400 also - have been using it HARD for a few years and it’s a great machine. We use the Fujitsu Scansnap which is a little pricey, but it scans 60 pages/minute, jamb free. Good equipment increases your availability for more assignments and scanning and printing less frustrating. It’s all worth it, in my experience.
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You can get by with a single tray printer if you have a manual tray to utilize for your legal documents. Set the manual tray to legal size paper and regular tray to letter. I do this occasionally as needed on my Brother MFC, and it works just fine.
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Thank you. I think so too. I have a big expensive one on the way, but as I have sat here for two weeks getting no work I just can’t see how most of this wisdom (though I respect it) applies to me.
My 2 cents here, you can factor in your fees trip time, ink, insurance, paper, etc. but “prep time” of the docs? Not so much. My motto? The biggest hit up front (expense wise) is cheaper in the long run. If it takes your current printer 15 minutes to print 200 pages when there is a printer out there that can do it in 3 minutes, no brainer for your bottom line. If you got the time (dictated by workload), then your good. If your doing 3 or more jobs per day, you might be losing (factoring travel time and time at the table). By having a good (fast printer/scanner) readily on hand will eventually be cheaper in the long run when those “upticks” in business eventually (and sporadically) fly around.
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It’s been over 2 years since I sent any docs back on on legal size (8.5x14) I send everything 8/5 x 11. I make sure I set my printer to “fit” the page. I never have had a complaint.
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Totally get it, but I’m excited for at least 1 a week at this point. The offers are just not coming.
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Just to clarify, you should also be checking the box that states “choose paper source by PDF size” to get any legal sized docs to print on legal sized paper. By not doing this, it will shrink the legal doc to fit on standard letter sized paper.
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Glenn says, “I make sure I set my printer to “fit” the page.”
VVS then says, “Just to clarify, you should also be checking the box that states “choose paper source by PDF size” to get any legal sized docs to print on legal sized paper. By not doing this, it will shrink the legal doc to fit on standard letter sized paper.”
I tried both techniques and my results were perfect! I have a DTW 5200 Brother that I love and, now I have two new things I can do to avoid the dreaded legal size paper which is very costly and cumbersome. I have only one query: are y’all pretty sure that title (and by extension, the County recorder) will accept letter size paper? I really don’t see why not when at least 60% of most jobs I do is letter-sized paper. Just askin’ because I don’t want any trouble. Responses warmly desired with gratitude 
If they are scanning the docs to you in letter size format, than it’s assumed that it’s acceptable. The PDF print preview will tell you what size paper the docs were scanned in as well.
Yeah, but if I reduce the size to letter, am I gonna get yelled at for submitting final docs on the ‘wrong’ sized paper? My objective is to avoid printing on legal sized paper [ever again]. 
My policy, (and usually in the instructions) if they scanned to you in legal size, they want back in legal size. Reducing size can cut off some of the info on the doc. Especially the tracking barcode at the bottom of the page.
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You know what I’m thinking… all this talk about printers, scanners and paper, letter, legal, etc…
I can’t wait to do everything online. RON
Remember those days when we can go to blockbusters, libraries, grocery stores, etc, to buy or rent movies? We don’t do that anymore we just watch on Amazon or Netflix or others!
Soon we do not need any printers or paper or anything:) 
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In my direct, current experience (and longtime experience as well for longer than a decade), title EXPLICITLY states either during the Signing Order request call, on the APP, or written on the actual Signing Order that document sizes are to be honored as received.
There are Title/Escrow Companies [T/ECs] that will pull the Signing Order & reassign it if legal size printing isn’t available. Many T/ECs are now asking up-front prior to even assigning the Signing Order.
NOTE: Completely understand that there may be exceptions to my experience, as conveyed by @glenntabor whose opinion I’ve always valued & trusted.
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Not sure about title, but the recorders will accept letter OR legal size - it’s just that legal size costs more to record. The important feature is the font size - recorders have font size and margin requirements for recording - if that’s impacted by shrinking to fit, it won’t record.
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Every assignment that I get states clearly to print on page on correct paper size… what am I missing?
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